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Cathy Young

How the media lied to distort a tragedy

This narrative has perpetuated the lie that Zimmerman’s history of calls to the police indicates obsessive racial paranoia. Thus, discussing the verdict on the PBS NewsHour, University of Connecticut professor and New Yorker contributor Jelani Cobb asserted that “Zimmerman had called the police 46 times in previous six years, only for African-Americans, only for African-American men.” Actually, only six calls—two of them about Trayvon Martin—had to do with African-American men. At least three involved complaints about whites; others were about such issues as a fire alarm going off, a reckless driver of unknown race, or an aggressive dog.

In this narrative, even Zimmerman’s concern for a black child—a 2011 call to report a young African-American boy walking unsupervised on a busy street, on which the police record notes, “compl[ainant] concerned for well-being”—has been twisted into crazed racism. Writing on the website of The New Republic, Stanford University law professor Richard Thompson Ford describes Zimmerman as “an edgy basket case” who called 911 about “the suspicious activities of a seven year old black boy.” This slander turns up in other left-of-center sources, such as ThinkProgress.org…

Liberals and disenchanted conservatives who decry fact-free ideological narratives, true-believer hysteria and willful reality-denial on the right should take a good look at the left’s Zimmerman Derangement Syndrome. Some far-right blogs have spun their own baseless theories depicting Martin as a criminal; but in this instance, their misdeeds are dwarfed by far more mainstream liberal “faux news” (meticulously documented on a dissenting left-of-center blog, The Daily Howler). As a fiction, Zimmerman the white supremacist rivals Obama the Kenyan-born commie Muslim.

Trayvon racially profiled Zimmerman (“creepy ass cracker“) and, with encouragement from his girlfriend (as she admitted to Piers Morgan) on the phone, then homophobically attacked Zimmerman, mistaking him for a gay stalker, breaking his nose and then getting on top and starting to beat him down.

This is such old news. Relentless digging shows Zimmerman doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. Absolutely no hint of anything. This shows how the Left and the race-baiters can create a narrative of racism out of wholecloth. From nothing. This is the story, of fabrication. Not Zimmerman.

And Martin, yeah, he’s a juvenile delinquent. That too is completely overlooked in the narrative.

PBS NewsHour, University of Connecticut professor and New Yorker contributor Jelani Cobb asserted that

Stanford University law professor Richard Thompson Ford describes Zimmerman as

Look who’s spreading lies and falsehoods. Highly educated people who obviously do no have their facts straight, and don’t care.

Of course, people on the right are also getting a lot wrong and placing blame on Zimmerman. Apparently people should not exit their vehicle when parked in their own neighborhood if an unknown young black male runs and disappears 200 ft away around the corner of a building. I guess they are supposed to “profile” unknown young black males as prone violence, or something.

Not even Krauthammer can get the sequence of events right. He still thinks Zimmerman bears some responsibility for being viciously attacked and assaulted because he is under the false impression that Zimmerman ignored the dispatcher’s advice not to “follow” Martin.

No one except Zimmerman knows whether he continued to track Martin—or, as he claims, headed back to his truck only to have Martin confront him. No one but Zimmerman knows who initiated physical violence.

If you believe Zimmerman lied about these things you’d have to believe he was the best liar in history. He’d have to know exactly what things the police would find physical evidence about to disprove his statements, and which statements about which there would be no evidence either way, so he’d know when to tell the truth and when to lie. And he’d have to know all that before the police started investigating and collecting evidence.

Or you can just follow Occam’s Razor and decide he was telling the truth about everything.

Of course, people on the right are also getting a lot wrong and placing blame on Zimmerman. Apparently people should not exit their vehicle when parked in their own neighborhood if an unknown young black male runs and disappears 200 ft away around the corner of a building. I guess they are supposed to “profile” unknown young black males as prone violence, or something.

farsighted on July 21, 2013 at 9:48 PM

I’ve seen this too, although not just on the right (although I don’t know the political affiliations of some who I have encountered that have argued this). Apparently, it’s wrong to believe that a black teenage boy is dangerous, because that’s racial profiling, but you shouldn’t get out of your car and follow one because black teenage boys might be dangerous.

I had one person arguing that the conviction should have been manslaughter because Zimmerman was “negligent” in getting out of his car and following Martin. Putting aside the fact that typically, in manslaughter cases, the “negligence” has to be what results in someone’s death, and simply getting out of a car and following someone doesn’t lead directly to killing them, the assumption seems to be that he should have assumed that Martin was dangerous, and thus he’s culpable for either not assuming that, or assuming it and proceeding to follow him anyway. Truly bizarre point of view.

Some far-right blogs have spun their own baseless theories depicting Martin as a criminal;

A security guard at his Miami school caught Martin with a dozen pieces of women’s jewelry and a screwdriver (described by the security guard as a “burglary tool”) in his backpack. When questioned by the security guard, Martin could not account for the jewelry and claimed only that a female “friend” — whose name he refused to give — had given him the jewelry. (The security guard had gone into Martin’s backpack to search for a marker, after Martin had been captured on videotape defacing school property.)

In addition to Martin’s school records, there was also plenty of other stuff indicating criminal activity (e.g., drug use, fighting — including assault on a bus driver –, attempts to purchase a gun, etc.) on Martin’s own social media pages (FB and Twitter).

The “far-right blogs” weren’t making this stuff up; they were simply reporting the facts about Martin’s activities that the MSM refuses to report because it doesn’t fit their phony narrative of Martin as sweet, innocent victim.